15 Replies - 675 Views - Last Post: 25 December 2010 - 06:29 PM

Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 23 December 2010 - 09:43 PM

You would think that the advent of tracking packages would be great. But over the years I have really found it to have some serious down sides:

#1 Checking fever. - You check the tracker every couple of hours in hopes that it has made it from Los Angeles, CA to Mesquite, TX...
#2 Time estimates - You know there is no point in trying to estimate if it is in Mequite, TX then it should be in New Orleans, LA by...
#3 Out For Delivery - No GPS on the truck, or route updates, its just out there somewhere in a hot delivery truck while that lazy delivery driver eats at Taco Bell.
#4 Delivered... NOT. There is nothing worse than "Delivered. Left on front porch" WTF, its not here! We don't even have a front porch! Where in the H.E.double hockysticks did that lazy ass delivery driver punt that thing out the door! Sure was not at my house as I was sitting in the living room hitting F5 on the tracking site every 5mins!

There is nothing you can do. You can call numbers and complain and whine but it does no good. Unless the neighbor is good enough to drop it off or at least call the delivery company to say, "that ain't mine" -- well there is absolutely nothing you can do.

I am sad... My package was "delivered" two days ago to some happy soul enjoying my... well I don't know what they are enjoying because it was a gift from my boss and I have no idea what it may have been. (probably a gift card).

You would think in the era of modern GPS and bar code for the driver to scan the package he is about to deliver and the machine to beep back that this is not the right address... and then in the delivery info to give the lat/long or GPS street address for where the thing was delivered to.

Re: Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 23 December 2010 - 09:57 PM

Well we have a slight problem because tomarrow we can't leave until the delivery tomarrow comes, and if it does not get here until late we may have to cancel our trip... or at least leave in the early AM.

Re: Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 24 December 2010 - 06:06 AM

Everytime I order anything online, every site in existence says they "can't deliver to a P.O. Box address"... so I change it to my street address. Podunk doesn't have mail delivery in town (population is too small to warrant paying for someone to deliver on foot - we either get post office boxes or don't get mail).

FedEx drivers will leave packages on my back porch.

UPS drivers take all my packages that could not be delivered to a post office box and leave them at the post office.

It drives me insane.

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 24 December 2010 - 12:12 PM

Re: Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 24 December 2010 - 08:11 AM

We used to live at an address that the mailman didn't go to and was not available on your typical GPS/Google Maps etc. -- I don't know WHY the mailman didn't deliver there as we lived across the street from a convenience store which they ate at all the time, and we were only a few blocks from the post office (even closer to the "center" of town) -- but for whatever reason they had the post office refused to make the address deliverable and required a PO Box. Note that the post office didn't seem capable of translating our physical address to our P.O.Box

UPS/FED EX were the worst. At first most packages were returned as "undeliverable" which is frustrating. My mother talked to the local UPS store and they seemed to fix the issue with UPS somehow, although they would occasionally get calls from UPS asking where the house was (usually they were in the convenience store parking lot 10 yards from the house) - I *think* they added a note to the address with the convenience store's address. To the best of my knowledge FedEx will not deliver to that address -- it just confuses the hell out of them. Why? well the road-fragment a vestigial portion of the main road though town that was diverted when a larger road was built. So it shares the same name as the "main street", which no longer crosses the new road but junctions with it. On our side the road is blocked off and trees and brush have grown up around the end. So the only way to get there is to start at the other end (away from town) which oddly enough has been recently re-paved so it looks like some big important street rather than the vestigial nub of the long venerated "Main Street" of the town. It is not as though this other entrance is miles away. No its about 1/2 a block away (it really is a "nub of a road" not much longer than many people's driveways.)

Re: Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 24 December 2010 - 08:50 AM

An SMS would be FAR better than the little sticky note the post office in PA uses. I had a certified letter that took like 3 weeks to get. What is funny is that it was from the land lord across the street. For legal reasons they had to send some mail certified (like "hey we are auto-renewing your lease if you don't tell us not to").

Re: Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 24 December 2010 - 10:52 AM

I just checked the status of my text books. :x I seriously hope they get here on the first estimated day. it says Dec 28 - Jan 18. I can't wait that long! My classes start on the 3rd! Waahahaahhahahaaaaaa!!!!!!! My diff eq book hasn't even been shipped yet! Wtf?!

Re: Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 24 December 2010 - 10:07 PM

I just sent a package to a friend of mine in the US, it was delivered a few days ago, but it took longer than expected. I was kind of pissed off because i was told that it would take 3-4 days to reach the destination and it took around 10 days. I suppose its not that bad since it was sent from Egypt to the US, but still.

Re: Tracking packages sucks...

Posted 25 December 2010 - 07:04 AM

Well, I really can't complain this year, I received all my packages on the estimated delivery dates and it was great. It was nice knowing I could stop by the house at lunch and bring the packages in. Anything FedEx I just have brought to the office since FedEx picks up there daily. This is the first Christmas in 3 years where I had everything wrapped and under the tree so I was feeling pretty good.

NickDMax, I do feel your pain as I've had bad experiences in the past and I've thought the same thing. In today's electronic world, why is there not more accuracy and updates to these tracking services. I know our FedEx rep was in the other day and she told us that for a small annual fee we could sign up for a more advanced tracking service that would track via the GPS that were equipped on the trucks and we could actually tell the streets that the trucks were on so I know the capability is there, they just probably don't want to offer that to the consumer as there would be a lot of people chasing down the drivers trying to get their packages off the truck. I know, I've done that before.